e main room and listened intently for several
minutes. After that he ran back to the office and began hastily to
open and rummage, one after another, the drawers of the desk. He
discovered and concealed several bits of string, a desk-knife, and a
box of matches. Then he uttered a guarded exclamation of delight. He
had found a small revolver, and with it part of a box of cartridges.

"A chance!" he exulted: "a chance!"

The game would be desperate. He would be forced first of all to seek
out and kill the men detailed to shadow him--a toy revolver against
rifles; white man against trained savages. And after that he would
have, with the cartridges remaining, to assure his subsistence. Still
it was a chance.

He closed the drawers and the door, and resumed his seat in the
arm-chair by the council table.

For over an hour thereafter he awaited the next move in the game. He
was already swinging up the pendulum arc. The case did not appear
utterly hopeless. He resolved, through Me-en-gan, whom he divined as a
friend of the girl's, to smuggle a message to Virginia bidding her
hope. Already his imagination had conducted him to Quebec, when in
August he would search her out and make her his own.

Soon one of the Indian servants entered the room for the purpose of
conducting him to a smaller apartment, where he was left alone for
some time longer. Food was brought him. He ate heartily, for he
considered that wise. Then at last the summons for which he had been
so long in readiness. Me-en-gan himself entered the room, and motioned
him to follow.

[Illustration: "DO SO NOW!" Scene from the play.]

Ned Trent had already prepared his message on the back of an
envelope, writing it with the lead of a cartridge. He now pressed the
bit of paper into the Indian's palm.

"For O-mi-mi," he explained.

Me-en-gan bored him through with his bead-like eyes of the surface
lights.

"Nin nissitotam," he agreed after a moment.

He led the way. Ned Trent followed through the narrow, uncarpeted hall
with the faded photograph of Westminster, down the crooked steep
stairs with the creaking degrees, and finally into the Council Room
once more, with its heavy rafters, its two fireplaces, its long table,
and its narrow windows.

"Beka--wait!" commanded Me-en-gan, and left him.

Ned Trent had supposed he was being conducted to the canoe which
should bear him on the first stage of his long journey, but now he
seemed condemned again to take